


Asagao

by a_gay_poster



Series: The Language of Flowers [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Festivals, Flower Language, Fluff, GaaLee Bingo 2020, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:28:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26958070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_gay_poster/pseuds/a_gay_poster
Summary: Months after their reunion in Suna, Gaara returns to Konoha to celebrate the Tanabata festival (and a bit more).An epilogue, of sorts, toHanakotoba.For GaaLee Bingo Bonus Card #1: Festival
Relationships: Gaara/Rock Lee
Series: The Language of Flowers [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1235363
Comments: 28
Kudos: 133
Collections: GaaLee Bingo





	Asagao

“Lee.” 

Lee’s arms fall slack from the pull-up bar, his feet dangling in mid-air. 

“Gaara!” He drops to the ground of the training field with a small cloud of dirt. “You’re early!”

Gaara’s siblings, standing behind either of Gaara’s shoulders, are giving Lee rather intense looks as he crosses to Gaara and wraps him up in a brief hug. He smells like dust and warm sun. 

After perhaps a moment too long with Gaara’s hands on his waist, Lee breaks the embrace to hold him out at arms’ length. He frowns. “You’re never early. Is everything all right?”

Kankuro rolls his eyes. “Little squirt tore ass across the desert as soon as everyone was ready to go. I swear he was tryin’ to kill me.” He dramatically mops the sweat from his painted brow. 

“You did?” Lee peers into Gaara’s face. 

It’s been months since they’ve seen each other, and a shinobi can only survive so long on mere letters from his love. Gaara’s Sand Armor betrays nothing of the exertion of his journey. There isn’t so much as a bead of sweat on his thin upper lip. Lee wants desperately to kiss him, but he doesn’t, because he still isn’t sure how much of their relationship is known to Gaara’s siblings. 

Gaara has been sending his correspondence by his personal hawk for security, and has asked Lee to do the same. The effect is that their letters are slightly staggered, Lee’s responses to Gaara’s previous letter only sent when the newest one arrives. 

The feeling is … distancing. Lee remembers reading a storybook once, about a woman who fell in love with a man living a hundred years in the past, just from reading his letters. He’s reminded of this every time he tucks a little scroll into Takamaru’s leg pouch. 

At least his fingers haven’t been getting snapped at nearly as often. 

Gaara adopts an expression of schooled indifference and fails to dignify his brother’s theatrics with a response, his arms crossed over his chest. 

Lee continues unperturbed. “Well, I was just about to begin an invigorating one hundred laps around the village before the festival tonight! Would you like to join me?”

“No,” Gaara replies curtly. 

Lee’s face falls. “Of course, you must be very tired from your journey! I’m grateful you came to see me before you went to rest.” 

“I’m not planning to rest.” 

“What were you planning on doing then?” 

Gaara leans forward and whispers something in Lee’s ear that Lee can’t repeat even to himself, that makes the blood rise up from Lee’s heart and flood his face. 

“Oh!” Lee yelps. “Um! We can—we can certainly—! That is, if that’s what you want—!”

Gaara takes his hand then, twining his rough, sandy fingers in Lee’s, and leans forward to press a dry kiss to the corner of Lee’s mouth. It’s not skin contact, of course; it’s his Sand Armor, but Lee flushes all the same. 

Steam might be coming out of his ears, in fact. That certainly answers one question.

“Ugh,” Kankuro groans. “It’s worse in person. You’re really into him, huh?” 

There’s a _thwack_ as Temari’s hand collides with the back of his hooded head and the squawk of Kankuro’s reaction. 

Gaara’s eyes don’t leave Lee’s face, but his mouth twists wryly to the side to utter over his shoulder, “Not yet.”

“Why, you little—!” 

There’s some sort of scuffle transpiring over Gaara’s shoulder, Temari wrestling Kankuro into a no-doubt painful hold and him making increasingly indignant spluttering noises. Lee hardly registers it, attention swallowed up by Gaara’s seaglass-green eyes. 

The corner of his mouth where Gaara kissed him is tingling. He touches it absently with his free hand. 

“We’ll leave you two to it,” Temari calls over Kankuro’s ruckus, starting to drag her brother away. “I’ve got to go drop these scrolls off at the Hokage Tower before they lock up for the night. Gaara, don’t forget you need to be at the village square for the opening speeches at seven. Don’t be late.”

“Kakashi will be late,” Gaara says, still without turning to look at his siblings. 

“Wonderful,” Temari drawls. “We’ve lowered our standards to ‘not as bad as Kakashi.’” 

Gaara dismisses them with a flick of his hand, then moves in a little closer to whisper in Lee’s ear once more. 

“How occupied is your apartment building right now?” 

Lee’s ears burn in response to the heat of Gaara’s lips. “Um, well, it’s a festival day, so everyone’s either off work or setting up for tonight. Nobody is going to be on their regular schedule.” 

“I see.” Gaara glances once around the training field, the assessment in his stare obvious. He drops Lee’s hand. “The hotel will be the most private location, then.” 

He spins and begins walking off the training field. He’s not wearing his Kage robes, and the hem of his red traveling coat is speckled with dust. There are longer streaks of dirt up its back panels, as if he were moving very quickly, and heedless of his clothes’ cleanliness besides. 

Lee hurries to follow him. 

“Is it the same hotel as last time?” he asks as he catches up to Gaara’s side. 

“Yes.” Gaara’s expression is closed-off, his lips a flat line. The Sand Armor shimmers in the early evening sun. 

“Are you … uh, sharing a room with Kankuro again?” 

Gaara nods his confirmation. 

Well, that certainly presents a few problems that Lee isn’t quite sure how to address. “Oh-kay,” he says thoughtfully. 

“I can make him leave.” 

“Gaara!” Lee yelps. “That’s very rude! He was just saying how tired he is!”

“He can nap in a tree. He falls asleep anywhere.” 

“Surely that will not be restful for him!”

Gaara shifts his shoulders in what might be misconstrued as a shrug, if Gaara were prone to such casual gestures. 

“I’m certain I can identify accommodations with suitable—” Lee drops his voice to a whisper. Nobody in the bustling streets seems to be remotely capable of eavesdropping on them, over the sizzling of meat being cooked for the night’s festivities and the banging of stands being hammered into a state of completion, but a shinobi always exercises the greatest of discretion with secrets of such a sensitive nature. “— _privacy_ if needed. Ones that won’t displace your brother. Perhaps another hotel room?” 

Gaara makes a sharp noise with his tongue against his teeth. “I’m fairly recognizable, Lee,” he says dully, nodding at a passing gaggle of Academy students who are pointing at the two of them, slack-jawed, “as are you.” 

Lee has brief cause to regret the fitness videos he recorded with Gai-sensei and Ino when open-circuit televisions were introduced to the village a few years ago. 

“Disguises, then?” 

“You have a disguise.” Gaara’s voice is so flat it’s not even a question. 

“Well, no!” Lee tugs at the collar of his jumpsuit. “But I could come up with _something_ in a pinch. Gai-sensei has a number of wigs and costumes that I imagine I could borrow, if—”

Gaara narrows his eyes. “The curly wig and false moustache? I’ve seen him try to sneak into the Hokage’s office wearing that. I would have recognized him even without the wheelchair. You’d stick out like a sore thumb.”

“Well, then—! I could—! We could—!”

Presently, they arrive at the sliding doors of the hotel. Gaara toes off his shoes and sets them in the cubby in the genkan. Lee tries not to stare at the line of his back as he bends over. 

“There’s a fireworks display at the end of the festival, isn’t there?” Gaara stands, rolling his shoulders slightly and cracking his neck, shaking the tension out of his shoulders. 

Lee nods hastily, unzipping his sandals. ”Konoha’s Tanabata fireworks display is among the most famous in all the Five Great Nations!” 

“Everyone will be outside and distracted.” Gaara’s voice is suddenly close. Lee isn’t sure when he snuck up, but there’s hardly any space between them now, his voice right up against Lee’s ear once more. “It will be loud. In case you want to make those noises again.” 

Lee clenches his fists so hard that his bandages creak and snap. 

Check-in is a perfunctory affair. The clerk hardly blinks at Lee standing at Gaara’s shoulder, probably assuming him to be the Kazekage’s jounin escort, and soon enough they’re in the hotel room proper. Kankuro hasn’t made it here yet; he and Temari must be caught up at the Hokage’s office. 

Gaara sheds his Sand Armor the moment the room’s door is closed, as quickly as he drops his pack and his gourd in the little closet by the restroom. Then he pins Lee to the door and kisses him soundly. 

It has truly been far, far too long since they’ve had the chance to do this. Lee goes immediately jelly-legged, sagging against the firm surface with only Gaara’s body to hold him up. Gaara’s hands make claws in the front panels of his flak vest. 

“I missed you,” Gaara sighs into his mouth. “I missed you so much.”

“I missed you, too.” Lee could almost cry with relief as he wraps his arms around Gaara fully, squeezing him the way he’s been longing to, until his toes nearly leave the ground. He’s still warm from the sun, and he tastes like the lingering grime of his Sand Armor and the sweat that’s collected beneath. He smells like safety and heat and _home_. 

Lee thinks, with a sharp ache of his chest, that when it comes time for Gaara to leave, he might not be able to let him go. He’s already making mental tallies of his vacation allowance, as Gaara’s mouth trails from his lips across his cheek to kiss at his neck. 

Lee’s neck is surprisingly sensitive, they discovered over the course of their last few short days together—kissing, first, and then later … _making love_. Gaara has other words for the act, but Lee prefers to avoid crassness. He recognizes, though, that he might be the only person who uses that term. 

Except, perhaps, for Gai-sensei. 

Gaara sucks gently at Lee’s pulse point, and Lee shudders.

He’d really rather not think about his sensei right now. 

Gaara’s palm slides to the center of his chest, fingers knotting around the zipper of Lee’s vest. The slow drag of Gaara’s hand down his chest is exquisite, the clicking of each set of zipper teeth coming apart torturous. 

Lee’s hands skate down to Gaara’s backside, grabbing at him through the dusty panels of his traveling coat. 

Gaara shivers. He bares his teeth against Lee’s throat; a suck turns into a bite. 

At long last, the two halves of Lee’s vest separate. Gaara’s hands are on him in an instant, first rubbing across his waist, then up to squeeze and knead at his chest. One hand finds the collar of his jumpsuit and tugs the flexible fabric down. Gaara’s teeth leave a bite mark on his Adam’s apple. 

There’s a tension to Gaara’s progress as he slowly stretches the suit down one of Lee’s shoulders, a simultaneous hurried desperation and a sense that he’s trying to take his time. As harsh as his mouth is when it worries at Lee’s skin, his hands are very gentle. 

Lee tugs him closer, rocks their hips into alignment. 

Gaara makes a noise that Lee’s sure he’ll remember for the rest of his life. 

“Phew! Yeah, it was a hell of a trip. Way too long, if you ask me.” 

Lee stiffens.

Kankuro’s voice carries up the hallway, obviously projected. His feet stomp on the hall carpet, accompanied by a repetitive thumping noise that must be him dragging his puppet along the floor. No shinobi moves that loudly without intending to announce their presence. He must have detected their chakra in the room; it’s not as though Lee can properly hide his. 

Gaara disengages from Lee reluctantly, glaring at the pale wood of the door over his shoulder as if it’s done him a personal offense. After a moment’s sulking, he releases Lee’s jumpsuit. The collar snaps back into place, though the elastic is a bit stretched now. He tugs the front of Lee’s vest together as he steps back, but he does not zip it. 

His lips are pursed with frustration, kiss-bruised. 

The Sand Armor comes back up over him as he nudges Lee aside to open the door. 

“Kankuro,” Gaara hisses into the hallway. “Quit all that racket.” 

Lee turns to face the far wall as the pale-faced concierge deposits Kankuro outside the room’s door with a curt bow. He tries to think calming thoughts, willing the blush from his face and the stirring from his loins. 

At least the shock of Kankuro’s untimely arrival has had a slight dampening effect on things. 

When Lee turns, there are obvious wrinkles on the back of Gaara’s coat. The evidence of where his hands have been is as blatant as Kankuro’s suspicious glare. 

Lee hastily wipes the dust from his bandages onto his thighs, attempting for surreptitiousness. He doubts he succeeds. 

“Where’s Temari?” Gaara is asking his brother, arms crossed over his chest once more. With his armor on, he appears completely unaffected. 

“In her room. Just down the hall. Said she needed some beauty rest. What are you two doing here?” 

“It’s my room,” Gaara retorts petulantly.

Kankuro raises one purple eyebrow. “And? Thought you two were gonna—” He coughs dramatically. “—y’know, catch up.”

“Lee’s neighbors are home.”

Kankuro shuts his eyes and takes what appears to be a steeling breath. “Okay. I know that technically wasn’t too much information, but it still feels like wa-ay too much information.” He drops his pack beside Gaara’s things in the little closet and makes his way into the room proper. “Green Bean, get out of the fucking corner. You’re not in time out. Sheesh.” 

Lee jumps to comply, but Gaara moves to join him in the corner, taking his hand fiercely and stilling him. 

“Lee doesn’t like cursing,” Gaara mutters. “And don’t tell him what to do.”

Lee’s heart is pulled in two directions. At once it puffs proudly at Gaara’s defence of him … at the same time as it squirms sickly with the feeling of being some sort of pawn in Gaara and his brother’s sibling bickering. 

“Oh yeah?” Kankuro bristles. “That’s your job, huh?” 

There’s a beat of silence where Kankuro pales. 

“Grossed myself out with that one,” he admits. 

The corner of Gaara’s lip twitches in a smirk. 

Kankuro flops down on one of the beds, his legs dangling off the side. “Listen, I know you’re all excited for your little … reunion canoodling or whatever, but we do actually have to get presentable for this shindig, y’know.” 

Lee straightens. “Right! I shouldn’t keep you from your duties. I’ll be on my way!” 

“You can stay.” Gaara’s head leans against his shoulder, and Lee’s heart softens immediately. “I’m just going to shower and dress.”

And those words send the adrenaline racing right back through Lee. 

“G-Gaara!” Lee swallows loudly. “That would be … most improprietous! And your brother—!”

“It’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”

Kankuro makes a noise very like the hawks in Suna’s aviary. 

“I also need to shower!” Lee yelps.

“Shower here.” Gaara cranes up onto his tiptoes so his mouth is at Lee’s ear. “We can share.” 

It’s just the barest gusting breath of a whisper, and it’s clear from Kankuro’s lack of reaction that he didn’t hear Gaara’s latest suggestion. But Lee’s whole body flushes just the same, hot as if he’s opened the first two gates. 

“My—my change of clothes is at my home,” he stammers.

Gaara leans back a few inches, scrutinizing him. His nostrils flare. “Fine,” he says, after a few moments’ more study of Lee’s tomato-red face. “You’ll come back before we have to leave?”

He looks … a little lost, almost. A little uncertain. Behind the armor, his eyes are searching, darting all over Lee’s face. 

Lee squeezes his hand in reassurance. “Of course I will,” he says. “Temari said you needed to be there at seven? I’ll meet you here at six-thirty. How does that sound?” 

“It’s already ten after six,” Kankuro comments wryly from his starfished position on the duvet. 

“Then I will perform the quickest shower and costume change in shinobi history to get back here on time!” Lee snaps into a Nice Guy pose, thumb extended and beaming. “And if I am late, I will walk the entire festival circuit on my hands!” 

“Don’t do that.” Gaara casts him an irritated look. “I want to be able to see your face.”

Lee’s whole body, already abuzz with nervous tension, explodes into a chorus of humming nerves like a kicked hornet’s nest. 

“Then I will—! I will—!” he stutters. “I will … come up with something else! But right now I must be off, so I don’t make you late!” 

Kankuro cackles at the ceiling. “Gaara can take care of that part on his own.”

Lee readies to zip from the room, but Gaara moves in front of him, tilting his chin up expectantly. 

The hornet hive in Lee’s chest rattles. He cups Gaara’s face in one hand and presses a chaste kiss to his cheek. 

“I’ll see you soon,” he whispers.

“Soon,” Gaara echoes.

“And hey, Green Bean.”

Lee pauses halfway out the hotel room door. “Yes, Kankuro-kun?”

“Don’t forget to zip up.”

Lee looks down at himself and his jumpsuit, where the two halves of his flak jacket are hanging open. There’s a small, dusty handprint smack-dab in the center of his chest.

* * *

“You—you’re wearing—” Lee stammers. 

It’s precisely two minutes past six-thirty and Lee has yet to think of a suitable self-rule. He doubts he’ll be able to devote much of his mind to coming up with anything now, in the face of Gaara looking like _that_.

“It’s a yukata.” Gaara spreads his arms. “It’s traditional for this festival, isn’t it?” 

“It is!” Lee’s voice escapes him in a squeak. “You look, um … You look very fetching.” 

Gaara’s yukata is belted just-so, the fabric crisp and clearly never worn, his gourd dangling from his waist like a netsuke. The underlying cotton is the exact seaglass green of his eyes, the pattern subtle, interlocking geometric shapes in white and blue. It’s only when Lee leans closer, squinting, that he recognizes it. 

_Morning glories._ Their blue petals have been carefully hand-dyed into the weave, their white middles each decked with a sunburst glow of orange, as if they’ve all burst into bloom simultaneously on Gaara’s body. 

Gaara touches his throat in a rare, self-conscious gesture. The shimmer of the Sand Armor is obvious in the low light from the hotel’s hallway. He reaches out and grabs Lee’s arm, dragging him inside and shutting the door behind him. 

“Has Kankuro already left?” Lee asks, peering over his shoulder. 

“He went to make excuses for my lateness.” Gaara raises his eyes to glance up at Lee—they’re exceptionally bright even as the sun goes down behind the thick curtains, their color brought out by his clothing—and smiles with just the corners of his mouth. “It’s one of the conveniences of having a personal entourage.” He picks up something from the bedside table and brings it back cupped in his palm. “Especially one who has no interest in observing our—” He clears his throat, and when he speaks again, it’s in a nasal imitation of Kankuro’s sprawling vowels. “—’ _joyous reunion_ ’.” 

Lee’s eyes widen. “I would _never_ do anything inappropriate in front of Kankuro!”

“I know.” Gaara snorts. “But I might.” 

“O-oh.” 

One cool, rough finger presses the join of Lee’s neck and shoulder. 

The slight tickle of pain from that little bruise isn’t the thing that makes him draw breath. 

Lee realized upon dressing that Gaara’s love bites, while well-covered by his suit, were not at all concealed by the much lower collar of his green yukata. He spent a moment’s consideration dithering over just wearing his suit underneath—it certainly wouldn’t be the strangest thing he’d ever worn to walk around the village—but he decided at the last moment that it would look too odd even for him. Moreover, it might embarrass Gaara. He’ll just have to endure. It’s possible he can just excuse the marks as training bruises if anyone asks. 

Although most people find Lee uninteresting at best and creepy at worst. So they usually don’t ask, even if they’re curious. They just give him judgmental looks. 

Gaara’s finger puts a bit more pressure on the largest of the red marks scattering his throat and shoulders. It’s not enough to really _hurt_ , but Lee is intensely aware that Gaara is disrupting the little wound’s healing, that the mark will take longer to fade now. His finger trails down Lee’s collarbone, a drag of friction on the bruised skin. 

Gaara seems very nearly captivated by digging his finger into every last little mark. The Sand Armor cracks away from his fingers as he moves them, walking them across Lee’s skin with excruciating deliberateness. 

It’s with what appears to be a physical effort that his eyes drag back to Lee’s face. 

“You look—” He inhales, and there’s a subtle rise and fall of his pale chest at the very top of his breastbone that Lee suspects will distract him all night. “—very handsome.” His hand slides up Lee’s neck, his thumb pressing the mark behind Lee’s ear before his fingers ruffle the ends of Lee’s hair. “This suits you.” 

A twist of unease surges in Lee’s belly. “That’s very flattering, but you don’t need to make things up for my benefit.” He cringes. “I know my looks are … nontraditional, to say the least.”

Gaara cocks his head, fixing Lee with an odd stare. 

“I have no reason to lie,” he says at length. “You have many positive qualities: you’re a skilled warrior, a loyal friend, an unsurpassed master of your chosen discipline. I would like you even if I didn’t find you physically attractive. But the fact is—” His hand has not left Lee’s hair throughout, and he uses it now to tilt Lee’s head down towards him, so the last few words are whispered against his lips, over the hiss of the armor sliding off his chin. “—I _do_.” 

Lee kisses him then, buoyed up by some inexplicable lightness that fills him like a fireworks show in miniature, bursting in his belly. 

Gaara lets it go on for a few minutes too long, until the thin and freshly creased kakuobi around his waist is quite wrinkled by Lee’s sweating palms. At long last, Gaara pulls back with a gasp. 

“We should leave,” he murmurs, and his lips are pink and wet before the armor creeps back over them and returns them to unremarkable tan. “Temari is probably antsy already. She’ll be upset if I really am later than Kakashi.”

“Right!” Lee snaps into a ready stance as the Sand Armor hisses and crackles back down Gaara’s hands.

They step into the hall, and Gaara reaches down and laces his finger with Lee’s. 

Lee squeezes his hand, then glances up and down the corridor. A neighboring door is ajar, the chatter of other hotel guests spilling into the quiet space, followed by the staggered and incomplete bars of some unfamiliar music. Lee’s eyes widen, and he goes to pull away. 

Gaara doesn’t let him. 

Lee freezes halfway to the stairwell door. 

“Won’t people see?” he leans down to hiss in Gaara’s ear. As they pass the open room, he tries to position his body so that no one will see how their fingers intertwine. 

Within, a gaggle of women are doing each other’s hair while men in open-necked yukata cheer and loudly clink their beer bottles. No one in the room so much as looks up, completely occupied with their festival preparations. 

“Let them.” Gaara pushes the stairway door open and halfway drags Lee down the creaky wooden steps. 

Lee’s heart thunders. He and Gaara have been so circumspect up to now, mindful of the thorny political implications of their entanglement. He can only imagine the speed at which rumors would fly if they were seen walking hand-in-hand. At a festival, no less. In _public_. 

“B-But—! You—!” Lee’s feet hardly touch the stairs as he rushes to keep up with Gaara’s quick steps, his mind feeling like it’s thirty meters behind his body. 

“I already discussed this with your Hokage,” Gaara says, as if he’s not currently detonating a figurative clay bomb to disrupt Lee’s whole worldview. “I had to, as soon as things became serious. It’s a matter of village security. You understand.”

In principle, Lee _does_ , but the mental image of Gaara, with his fondness for blunt terminology and his complete lack of embarrassment, discussing the things they did the last time Lee was in Suna … of Gaara telling _Kakashi-sensei_ that they had—had s—

He can’t even put it in words in his own mind. 

His cheeks are burning.

“How did … um. How did he take it?”

“Better than the Council.”

“The _Council?_ ” Lee yelps. Just how many people have been informed of his and Gaara’s relationship status in the intervening months, while he’s been laboring under the delusion that their secret was still, well, a _secret_?

Gaara exhales sharply. Even from behind him, Lee can sense his irritation. “They were somewhat more disapproving. They’re disappointed that our union is unlikely to produce an heir to the Kazekage position.”

“That’s rather closed-minded of them!” Lee says hotly. “There’s adoption and foster parenting and … all sorts of things!”

“You’ve thought about this.”

Lee’s mind screeches to a halt as they arrive at the ground floor landing. Of course he’s thought about such things—the notion of a _family_ is very important to him, as someone who grew up without one—but he’s only ever considered this future in the abstract. As a sort of distant _what-if_. 

“Good.” Gaara’s reaching for the door handle to the lobby, not even looking at Lee. “I have, too.” 

Lee’s soul just about flies from his body. 

Before Gaara can finish opening the door, Lee grabs him by the shoulder and spins him. 

The kiss he draws them into is surprisingly heated for the fact that he’s not touching Gaara’s bare skin at all. 

When he pulls back, gasping, there’s a visible crack in the Sand Armor down Gaara’s cheek. His green eyes are wide, his lips parted. He darts his tongue out to lick them. 

The hairline fracture fissures outward, the noise of the Sand Armor as it shatters echoing in the stairwell. Big clumps of sand slough off and drop to the ground at Gaara’s feet as he grabs Lee the waist, walking him backwards until he’s pressed up against the fire door. 

He bites Lee’s bottom lip before he kisses him properly, hard enough to draw a hiss out of Lee’s throat. His tongue searches Lee’s mouth, licks at the backs of his teeth, sweeps across the soft, sensitive skin on the inside of his cheek. 

There’s an utter _rightness_ about being together like this, about being on exactly the same page. Lee knew, somewhere distant in the hyper-analytical part of his brain—the one that he only started to register after Neji’s death, the same one that breaks apart an opponent’s moves in battle and which is normally completely suppressed by his emotions and instincts—that Gaara would never be so vulnerable around someone he isn’t serious about. But it’s still nice to have the mutuality of their intentions confirmed. 

Gaara slides a hand up into the back of Lee’s hair and tugs just gently. 

Lee’s head tips back on a sigh. 

Yes, it’s very, very nice. 

“G-Gaara,” Lee gasps, the metal of the door handle digging into his spine. In the very back of his mind, he’s slightly concerned that if Gaara keeps pressing up against him like this, that they’re going to fall through the door and set off the fire alarm, and wouldn’t that be the scandal. But mostly he’s focused on the heat of Gaara’s mouth, the little noises that are getting caught in the wet space between their lips. “We’re going to be late.” 

Gaara nibbles Lee’s lip. “We’re already late.”

“We’re going to be _more_ late.” 

A clamor of voices at the top of the stairwell kills the argument. 

Gaara draws back and snaps the Sand Armor over his body just as the noisy party from their hall spills through the door and begins rattling down the steps. 

Gaara turns, taking Lee’s hand once more to lead him into the lobby. The last thing Lee sees before the Sand Armor closes up entirely is the high, pink blush on the back of Gaara’s neck. 

Moments later they’re alone once more, in the closed-off genkan that leads out into the street, toeing on their shoes. It’s a slightly awkward affair, because Gaara refuses to release Lee’s fingers even for the amount of time needed to arrange their sandals on the ground. 

“Gaara.” Lee tugs on his hand to still him as he reaches for the door handle. “Are you _sure_ about this?” 

The glance Gaara gives Lee over his shoulder then is irritated, but it softens almost immediately. 

“It’s easiest this way,” he says softly. “People will be so caught up in their own affairs and the festivities this evening that they won’t have time to spare for interrogating our relationship. The rumors will spread naturally through the villages, and by the time we’re ready to make an official public announcement of our status, the seed will already have been planted. It won’t be a shock that way; it will feel like a foregone conclusion of what everyone already knows.” 

Lee purses his lips. How many people already know, he wonders? How long has Gaara been slowly enacting this plan—sowing these seeds—without letting Lee in on it? Lee has only ever _hinted_ to Tenten or Gai-sensei about the nature of their relationship, and now … 

He sighs. It all feels rather strategic. 

“Ah.” Gaara draws a sharp breath. “I nearly forgot.” 

He fumbles for a moment and holds out the small object he’s been concealing in his palm. 

It’s a netsuke—a little clay figure with a chain hanging from it, meant to be hung from the sash of a yukata—in the shape of a succulent plant. An echeveria, maybe, if Lee’s remembering his scientific names right. The color is a soft green, each leaf clearly handmade and hand-painted. There are the obvious ridges of a thumbprint just at the base, where it attaches to the chain. 

Gaara edges that last bit closer and hooks it to Lee’s kakuobi, his fingertips brushing Lee’s hip before he pulls away. 

“There.” 

Lee touches it with near-reverence, the pad of his thumb slotting into marks that Gaara’s fingers have left on the clay. It’s not quite a perfect fit; Lee’s fingers are slightly larger, but … 

Gaara looks up at him from under the fall of his bangs, his eyes wrinkled just-so, in that little hint of a smile he sometimes wears that doesn’t quite manifest on his mouth. 

Lee studies Gaara’s eyes, lit up morning-glory blue by the light reflecting off his kimono. He thinks about the Tanabata festival, about Orihime—the morning glory princess—separated from her love by work and duty. He thinks about the meaning of morning glories, the pattern of them fractalized on Gaara’s clothing, the fine fall of their petals sculpted in sand on the shelf in his kitchen. _Willful promises_. 

Lee’s thumb skids over the sharp edge of a moulded clay leaf. His heart clenches in his chest, a physical gesture, like it’s being squeezed by vines wrapping tighter and tighter. 

It’s suddenly very hard to breathe. All the many varieties of succulents have just one meaning, written down in the stolen library book that lives now on his bookshelf: _eternal love_. 

Gaara’s truly smiling at him now, just a hint of those sharp teeth bared beneath his sandy-pale lips. 

_Oh._

“Thank you,” Lee whispers, as Gaara’s hand slots into his once more.

It’s the farthest thing from strategic, after all. 

Lee squares his shoulders. 

His last thought, before they step out into the street, on full display, is that if he knew this was going to be his first public appearance as Gaara’s significant other, he would have taken more time styling his hair.

* * *

It’s a few hours into the festival. Much to Temari’s chagrin they did arrive quite late, though still not later than Kakashi, who showed up precisely two minutes after their entrance with leaves in his hair and an air of disaffected casualness, as if he had been squatting in a nearby bush and waiting for them. 

Lee has already stood through Gaara’s heartfelt speech about the importance of bonds between villages and the value of absorbing new customs, during which he glanced at Lee perhaps overmuch, a glint in his eye; and Kakashi’s rather more curt admonition to, “Be safe, have fun, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” (which, given the fact that no less than three-quarters of the shinobi corps, including this year’s class of newly minted genin, have either seen him dashing through the streets of Konoha hurling pots and pans at Gai-sensei or soundly besting Kiba in a dog-biscuit eating competition, does not rule out nearly as many activities as he probably thinks it does). They’ve already passed through the food stands, where Gaara lingered, staring longingly from his already-purchased waxed paper carton of somen noodles to the array of grilled and skewered fish (until Lee, feigning hunger, snatched the noodles from his hand and asked, “Are you going to eat all that?”, giving Gaara an excuse to buy an order of saba). 

Now they’re standing in a copse of potted bamboo bedecked with paper streamers. The air smells like smoke and fried food, but here, on the edge of the festival grounds, the noise of the music and the chattering crowd is muted, diminished to just the murmured conversations of the few other festival patrons nearby and the rustle of the paper streamers fluttering in the evening’s gentle breeze.

At some point during the evening, Gaara dropped Lee’s hand to take his elbow, and they’ve been strolling arm-in-arm along the narrow walkways between the festival booths ever since. Gaara was right to think everyone would be too preoccupied with their own business to bother them much. The closest they’ve come to a confrontation was Tenten catching Lee’s eye across a crowded street as they skirted around her kunai-throwing-game booth. But even her raised eyebrow and curious expression was easily diverted by Lee mouthing, _I’ll explain later_. 

“This is the most important tradition of the festival,” Lee says softly, selecting for himself a color-backed strip of paper from the large stack on a nearby card table. He doesn’t pick forest green or orange this time, as he would any other year. Instead, he grabs a tanzaku paper backed with pale teal, the closest he can find to the color of Gaara’s yukata (and the color of Gaara’s eyes). 

“There aren’t many people here, for the most important tradition,” Gaara notes, picking out a red strip of paper and holding it scrutinizingly up to a paper lantern, as if it might contain some undivulged secret. 

“Well—” Lee chuckles, glancing around. There are only a few people nearby, most of them elderly couples or parents with small, bored-looking children, and hardly anyone their age. “—I guess that’s true. People are more interested in the food and the dances these days. But this has always been my favorite part of Tanabata. When I was younger, I made the exact same wish every single year.”

“To become a splendid ninja who uses neither ninjutsu nor genjutsu,” Gaara guesses astutely. 

Lee nods. “And to surpass my rivals in training and on the battlefield.”

Gaara narrows his eyes, squinting down at the half-formed characters Lee has begun to ink onto the white front of his tanzaku. 

“That’s not your wish this year.” 

Lee flushes, angling his shoulders to obscure his wish from Gaara’s view. 

“N-no.”

“Because you’re already a splendid shinobi,” Gaara continues.

“That’s kind of you to say—” The heat on the back of Lee’s neck intensifies. “—but there is always room for improvement.”

Gaara huffs through his nose.

“I don’t think the gods had anything to do with _that_. It was all your hard work.” 

“And you?” Lee changes the subject, folding his fortune in half and securing it with a length of twine to the highest bamboo branch he can reach. “What will your wish be?”

Gaara gives Lee a very strange look then, his eyebrows furrowed just slightly and his mouth parted. 

“You’re not supposed to tell other people your wishes,” he says, after a moment’s silence punctuated only by distant drums and the stomping of dancers’ feet, “or else they won’t come true. A spirit might snatch your desires out of the air before they make it to the gods’ ears.” 

“I always forget how superstitious you are.” Lee shakes his head, stifling a giggle as Gaara turns back to scrawling down his wish with his hand cupped around the back of the paper so Lee can’t see what he’s writing. 

He scratches words down for quite a bit longer than Lee has ever known him to write, his face tense and the motions of his pen very slight, his strokes small. He’s usually so terse and so brief, even in letters that are ostensibly romantic. There must be quite a lot of weight and detail to whatever his wishes are tonight. 

“You know,” Lee says, as Gaara sets down the pen and stands, folding his strip of paper in half, “there are some wishes that are better off shared. … Especially if you’re expecting someone else to help you make them a reality.”

Gaara draws a thin breath. His eyes widen.

“I’ve made a mistake,” Gaara whispers. The paper crinkles in his squeezing fingers. “I was supposed to _talk_ to you. Communication—” His eyes are moving quickly now, seeming to search Lee’s face for any hint of a way forward. “—You said it was important.”

His fist clenches; the wish crumples into a ball.

“I’m sorry,” he says to somewhere in the air between them, not quite looking at Lee. 

Lee just beams back, soothing Gaara’s fingers loose and taking the wrinkled tanzaku paper. He does not look at what Gaara has written, even as he presses the paper flat against the card table and smooths it out. 

“You’re forgiven,” he says, all sincerity and grinning teeth. 

“I can tell you—” Gaara stammers with uncharacteristic hesitance, “—what I wrote. You can read it. If you want.”

“No need.” Lee goes up on his tiptoes so he can tie their wishes side-by-side—his whipping evenly in the breeze and Gaara’s limping crookedly alongside. “I’m sure you’ll tell me in due time, right? Like I said, there’s always room for improvement.”

Gaara seizes Lee’s elbow as he brings his arms down and, after a brief glance up and down the little corridor of bamboo to ensure no one is watching, presses his face contritely to Lee’s shoulder. There’s a whisper as his Sand Armor recedes so he can place a kiss there, and another as it slides back up to cover his face, the motions ticklish where the sand grazes Lee’s bare skin. 

“I truly am sorry,” Gaara whispers. He’s not prone to repeating himself, so Lee knows he must really mean it. “I’m still learning how to do … all this.”

“We’re learning together,” Lee reminds him, pressing a quick kiss to the crown of Gaara’s bowed head. “Don’t worry. I don’t hold a grudge.”

“Sometimes that worries me the most,” Gaara mutters. 

Just then, the whistle of a projectile splits the air. A crackle of sparks rains down from high above, turning the sky firelight orange. 

“The fireworks are starting,” Lee whispers. “Are you ready to go?”

“Your apartment?” Gaara murmurs back. “I’m not sure I can transport us there accurately…” 

Lee extends his elbow, and Gaara takes it.

“That’s okay,” Lee says, smiling around the words. “We have all night.”

* * *

A short walk later, they’re tucked away quietly in Lee’s bedroom, the coverlet turned down and the lights turned out. The whole building is still and quiet, empty save for the few shinobi families who have gathered on the rooftop to watch the show from a better vantage point. The curtains are cracked so the night sky is visible outside, and showers of red and gold sparks burst on Gaara’s bare chest as he strips out of his yukata and sheds the Sand Armor one last time. 

They fall together onto Lee’s thin mattress, and shortly after that, Lee can’t be sure if the fireworks are happening outside or if they’re bursting behind his eyelids.

**Author's Note:**

> Be sure to check out the other GaaLee Bingo fills on Tumblr [@gaalee-bingo!](https://gaalee-bingo.tumblr.com/tagged/fills)


End file.
